This morning, when I scanned the Las Vegas news, I ran across this amazing article about a coyote biting a woman sitting on a park bench in Lake Las Vegas as follows:
“Woman ‘bitten on buttocks’ by coyote while staying in Lake Las Vegas, report reveals…
However, recent attacks – including one on a two-year-old – have prompted city officials to begin posting signs around Lake Las Vegas and warnings on social media advising people against feeding the coyotes.
Records from the Nevada Division Of Wildlife Law Enforcement details the moments that a coyote at Lake Las Vegas bitted a 2-year-old girl.
FOX5 has also received more details on an attack that occurred in November of last year from the Nevada Department of Wildlife. In the new report, a 71-year-old woman reported to authorities that she had been bit on the buttocks by a coyote.
The woman was staying at the Hilton in Lake Las Vegas at the time of the attack.
The woman said the coyote didn’t appear to be afraid of humans, and when she went up to her hotel room, she “decided to inspect her buttocks, which revealed a puncture wound that was bleeding.”
She immediately went to the hospital, where she received the first of four rabies vaccine shots.
NDOW officials tell FOX5 that they suspect the coyotes approaching people for food may have led to these bites. Investigators surveyed the area near the Hilton but did not identify any possible food sources that would attract the coyotes.
The report details how Hilton security officers have also witnessed the public feeding coyotes.
So far, NDOW has euthanized around 12 coyotes.”
It’s unfortunate that 12 coyotes were euthanized. I’m disappointed they didn’t capture them and take them to a wild area in the many open spaces in Nevada. These beautiful animals surely can be an annoyance and dangerous in some circumstances but human intervention by feeding them and occupying their territory has made them subject to euthanization, a sad result.
Of course, I feel badly for the woman and others who’ve been bit by coyotes in this area which is more wild than the remainder of Las Vegas. We’ve yet to see a coyote here.
But in our old lives in Minnesota, during the winter months when the lake was frozen, we couldn’t allow our little dogs to venture outdoors without being accompanied by us and on a leash. There had been numerous reports of little dogs becoming “lunch” for the roaming coyotes, who, during periods when the lake was frozen, they’d come right up to our yard, looking for the dogs.
One night, when one of our aging dogs awoke me in desperate need to go “potty” on a -20F night. I let Willie out standing by the door watching him. Since it was so cold, he would go far from the door. As I stood there watching Willie, I spotted a coyote ten feet from him. Quickly in the pajamas and bare feet, I ran outside screaming at it before it grabbed him. Luckily, I scared it off, but I’ll never forget that night.
Once the ice “went out” in the spring, coyotes were seldom seen, since they traveled from a vast wildlife area, across the frozen lake in the winter.
Hopefully, this news warns visitors and locals to proceed with caution when outdoors in Lake Las Vegas and other wildlife areas.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, March 1, 2014:
There wasn’t a post on this date in 2014, since it was a travel day and we had a long layover in Cairo and didn’t take photos out of respect for the travelers waiting for flights, along with us.
